Additional live rock to an established tank

[Jasonzo6]

My tank has been up and running for over a year and a half. A friend recently took his tank down and gave me several of his best pieces of live rock. No way I'm putting these in my tank unless I can find a way to do it without hurting my tank. He had a bad outbreak of hair algae...

Can I put the rock in a bucket, fill it with fresh water, and let it sit for a couple of weeks? Will that kill everything off? Not sure how much of an ammonia spike I would get putting a few small pieces in at a time, but wanted to at least consider the option. Othwerwise, I will pass them off to someone cycling a new tank after a long freshwater bath.

[romunov]

The hair algae may not be directly related to the rock. Although some rocks do seem to "accumulate" nutrients which prolongs algae growth, this may not always be the case. If the rock is in fairly well "cured", I would speculate that it's probably ok to add it.

And yes, putting something from salt water into fresh water for _several weeks_ will kill it. Three times over.

If the rock is well cured and the added amount isn't a "major" rearrangement, your tank should be fine.

[Jasonzo6]

Rock is already dead since he had it out of the tank and sitting outside for over a week, so it's "cured" status is gone.

These are small pieces, nothing larger than your hand so I figured a few pieces at a time would be good. I just need to accentuate some areas and these are nice looking smaller pieces. Thanks for the help!

[papagimp]

I agree Romuov, hair algae is usally a result of the tank keepers maintance practices or lack of. Not the rocks fault that the owner couldn't keep the tank clean enough or low enough in nutrients.

And pesronally, I'd rather throw some good cycled rock into my tank than kill everything off of it and start fresh.

Just a warning for ya though. About 6 months ago I decided to pull a few chunks of rock out of my tank, repalced with some newer more porous rock, pre-cycled, and something got all sorts of screwy with my tank afterwards. In the last 6 months, I've yet to see my ammonia or nitrites below 0.5ppm and nitrates havn't been under 100+ in about as long. Prior to my re-arranging experiment, the water quality alwas stayed optimal, even nitrates were 0ppm all the time. Re-arranging and replacing parts of the tank/aquascaping can have dissatroues and un anticipated results so i'd advice you make sure the rock is cured, make sure you do not kick up a crapload from the sandbeds, and don't remove any rock that you feel is benefiting the filtration of the tank.

[papagimp]

Okay, read that last post of yours, definatly take care now, since the rock is not cured anymore. I'd probably stick it in a bucket with a powerhead and get the rock cycling first...depending on the sizes of the pieces. And definatly try to clean as much die off as possible before you throw any in your tank. You may notice an ammonia spike afterwards so go slowly with this. Hope for the best, but be prepared for the worst...have water available for water changes in case ammonia spikes on ya, maybe a bottle of seachems PRIME around just in case.

[kevin2000]

You have "base rock" with potentially alot of dead material on and within the rock. At a minimum you want to try and remove that material because it will decompose within your tank and potentially create problems. Scrubbing the exterior and leaving the rock for a a day or so in a bucket with a power head may help remove that crud.

Some people would argue that live rock which comes from "dirty/algae ridden tanks" can accumulate phosphates within the rock which may leach back out into your tank. There is some debate on that but its a risk you should be aware of .. how much risk is probably based on how much rock your talking about and how nasty the other tank was.

Hope this helps.

[Jasonzo6]

ALL of this helps a ton. Hmmm, sounds like I should get this stuff clean and throw it into a spare tank and let it cycle, then put it into my main tank. That sounds like the "smartest" thing to do...

It came from a tank that you could not see inside, it was completely engulfed in hair algae and all you saw was swaying algae going back and forth across the glass. He "let the tank go" and had removed any corals/fish but had left the live rock in it. That's why I didn't want to put it into my tank... who knows what that rock had in it.

Thank you very much for all the input, I'm thinking that cycling this stuff in a spare tank is the way to go. I'm ALWAYS trying to be on the safe side...